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French houses priciest in Europe - but debts low

Nicola Hebden
Nicola Hebden - [email protected]
French houses priciest in Europe - but debts low

France is the most expensive place in Europe for new housing, according to a study released this week, but the country's inhabitants' are only half as indebted as their neighbours in the UK.

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The study by finance company Deloitte reveals the average price of new real estate in the capital is €8000 per meter squared. The cheapest is in the Hungarian capital Budapest, where the average price per square meter is €940.

France also comes second for the general cost housing – including renting, building charges and home improvements.  It is 41% over the EU monthly average of €3200 per year. Denmark is the most expensive at 70%.

Getting on the property ladder is hard in France too – not only do buyers have to face a 6.2% hike in house prices, the highest in Europe, Deloitte also calculated they need to save 9.11 years’ worth of salary to buy a house outright.

But one area where France isn’t worst in Europe is housing debt - mortgage loans total 41% of GDP, which is over 10% lower than the European average of 52%.

At an average of €12,310 per inhabitant, personal debt in general in France is on a par with most other European countries, including Austria, Belgium and Spain, but they were only slightly more than half those of Britons, who owed an average of €23,270 per person.

Deloitte’s study released today looked at 12 European countries in total, including Belgium, Denmark, Czech Republic, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Hollande, Poland and Britain.

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